In addition to this question of nationality is one of which complicates matters con siderably. There are seven chief religious sects in Macedonia: the adherents of the original Greek Church ; those of the schismatic Bulgarian Church; those of the New Greek Church, who recognize the patriarch in Constantinople; those Bulgarians and Serbians, converts of American missionaries, who call themselves Protestants; the Wallacks, who are an offshoot of the ancient Greek Church; those who practise the Jewish faith; and the Mohammedans.
The Turkish government, in administering the affairs of Macedonia adopted the principle of assisting and protecting the weak and of snubbing and persecuting the strong or pre dominating party; thus, in a certain district where the Greek was strongest he was least popular with the Turkish authorities. Near the Bulgarian frontier, where the Bulgarian element was practically held in subjection, sev eral public offices were held by Greeks, and so on.
This mode of government led in 1895 to a Bulgarian uprising and in 1896 to a Greek re volt, but would probably long since have proved its success from a Turkish point of view were it not for the fact that the Macedonian Com mittee in Sofia, a society formed for the pur pose of conducting a nationalist campaign in Macedonia to effect freedom from Turkish rule, discovered its real nature and set about to disrupt it. The result was the insurrection in 1903 headed by Boris Sarafoff, the avowed aim of which was to provoke the Turks to massacre Christians and to commit acts that would arouse Christendom and compel the Great Powers to expel them from Europe. The insurrection was crushed by the Porte, with a comparative absence of the atrocities and cruelties that formerly characterized Turkish warfare. Autonomous institutions had been provided for Macedonian Christians by the Berlin Congress of 1878, and Austria and Rus sia, acting with the authority of Europe, drew up a drastic reform scheme which provided that civilian agents of the two governments must accompany the Turkish inspector-general, to direct his attention to the needs of the population, and to report to their governments what is done and what left undone. The re
organization of the police in the disturbed vilayets was put under the charge of a foreign officer. Mixed commissions of Mohammedans and Christians were to report on crimes and outrages. The sultan was to be to allot funds for the repatriation of exiles, for the immediate needs of the populations and for the rebuilding of their homes. Taxa tion of the expelled Christians was remitted for a year, while the formation of bands of Bashi-Bazouks was absolutely prevented.
The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 were waged largely for the possession of Macedonia, and the access to the sea it would afford, by the younger Balkan powers. As a result of the first war, waged in 1912 by members of the Balkan League, which included Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, Turkey was de prived of considerable territory, the division of which among the mutually contending Chris tian states of the peninsula was left unsettled by the unsatisfactory treaty of peace signed on 30 May 1913. War again broke out in the succeeding month: Bulgaria attacking Serbia and Greece on 30 June, and Rumania joining forces with the latter on 9 July. Three days after Turkey stepped into the field and Adrian ople (taken by Bulgaria from Turkey is the former war) was recaptured. This war ended with the humiliation of Bulgaria; and when the treaty of peace was signed at Bucharest (29 September) the net result of the two wars for her was the handing back to Turkey of territory won in the preceding and (apart from a very small Dart) the division of Mace donia between Serbia and Greece. See WAR, EUROPEAN.